I've been trying to experiment with all the magic spells to see if those lores which we're writing off as not that great (Fire comes to mind) can be improved when used in combination with other lores.

So for those people that have to have dragon mages how about using this combo:

Fulminating Flame Cage (5th Fire) + Wind Blast (2nd Heavens).The first spell does D6 S4 hits (or more if you've already fireballed that unit), the second pushes the unit D3+1", proccing the 1st spell to do a further S4 hit to every model in the unit (plus if you manage to push the unit into something (e.g. terrain) they suffer D6 S3 hits).

Doom and Darkness (4th Death) + Burning Head (3rd Fire).Get both off and kill something with the 'Head and you force a panic test at -3Ld. Cue (very non-Elvish) manic laughter as the burning baddies flee for their lives!

Or with normal mages:

Soulblight (3rd Death) OR Enfeebling (2nd Shadow) + Net of Amyntok (4th Light) OR The Dwellers Below (6th Life).If you get the powered up version of Soulblight off every enemy unit in 24" gets -1S & -1T, while Enfeebling reduces 1 unit's S by D3 18" range. Then pick and choose who will die with either of the other 2 spells, as they force Strength tests.

Can anyone think of other quality spell combos? (Particularly with fire - perhaps we can make dragon mages really worth having!) Or is everyone going to be taking 2 archmages, Shadow and Life, as the ultimate buffing killing raising machine!

This isn't really a spell synergy, but it helps our units in a way that cannot be ignored:

Glimmering Robes on our White Lions gives them a 1+ save vs. shooting.Enchanted Blades on Sword Masters gives them armor piercing and +1 to hit ontop. SMs hit on 2+ hurt and have -3 to armor will chew up other elites like no other.

So.. probably a good reason to take both of those units when building with Lore of Metal.

Cheers Hero, I gotta admit that you're first Magic post on your blog nailed the best magic lores (except High Magic) straight away.

There you mention some amazing spell combos only using the Lore of Metal.

Imagine building a list around this Lore and whacking most of your Core points into 30 Seaguard with Full Command and the banner that gives them flaming attacks. Then getting off Enchanted Blades and Glittering Robes on them. Wow, even in 5x6 formation I can do 19 flaming, armour piercing bow shots with no to hit modifier in Stand and Shoot (as the -1 is cancelled out by the Blades +1) followed up by 21 flaming armour piercing attacks in CC that will be ASF and probably re-rollable too at I5! Then when the enemy get to strike back (if there are any left!) I'll have a base armour save of 3+!

Imagine forcing your opponent to avoid your Core units like the plague and into the waiting *insert Great Weapons here* of our Special troops. Who needs to be an elite army!

I'd also like to mention that one of the best supporting spells in the game is the basic spell in Lore of Beasts.

+1S and +1T is sickening good and can be cast reliably with a supporting caster. You can stack your entire army worth of buffs that'll make your opponent second guess every dispel he's willing to make.

Lore of Life is simply where many HE archmages are going to have to live or die. Throne of Vines is a must have spell. I used that today followed immediately by a six die cast of the Dwellers Below. Killed 26 Night Goblins in a 50 model horde and used the free wound to bring my Prince (who had used the ToL) back to full. Incredible stuff.

Protection from shooting is going to be mandatory. Warmachines are incredibly powerful, even simple Goblin ones. The Lore of Light spell that does a 12' inch bubble that forces warmachines to 4+ roll before they can target a unit in the bubble is going to be a mainstay of elven armies.

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Quote:

Tethlis: "Most GW female sculpts tend to look like a surly transgender woman of the night, and it would be nice to avoid that if possible."

This edition is pushing towards several spell users, in order to have the greatest flexibility with magic lores, in particular since the lore cannot be chosen upon learning of your opponent. Since a wizard cannot cast another spell after failing to cast a previous one, multiple wizards will reduce the impact of this. Whilst taking many wizards has been made easier by changing the hard character cap to a point cap, we will still struggle due to our expensive wizards. We can only realistically take three wizards, and have no combat characters, at two thousand points. Due to the relative power of the basic spells, compared to this edition, Radiant Gem of Hoeth could become very valuable, especially as his chance to give an additional power dice is the same as that of a archmages. Only time can tell wether magic heavy will be the new star dragon.

Also, this removes some of the appeal from Teclis. One wizard powerhouses are not the focus of this edition.

The main spell synergies are those that reduce stats. Using the base spell that reduces a stat by D3 and then the other spell of the lore that reduces S or T by an additional D3 should outright kill almost any basic troops. Of course for all we know a zero statistic will not kill in this edition, as otherwise these spells will be the end of all elves. It is difficult to tell how viable these spells are until we know their casting value.

In the second game I played using the new rules I had both the Flaming Sword of Ruin and the plus one to hit and armour piercing on a unit of Swordmasters. This unit was then charged by a unit of Ogre Ironguts, but proceeded to kill 5 Ironguts, doing 20 out of the possible 22 wounds (7 by 2 with full command gives 22 attacks)! This was truly disgusting and a huge shock to my opponent. With multiple lores in an army, the amount of buffs our units can receive can make them ridiculously hard hitting!

There are two spells, Lore of Shadow's 6th spell and another from the Lore of Light, that I think would work great together. The Light spell grants the unit initiative 10. This means you'll be striking before everything but Dark Elf Assassins and yet still striking at the same time as them with re-rolls. The Shadow spell let's the unit use their leadership for their strength.

My plan is to run a 50 elf strong unit of seaguard to fully take advantage of the new horde and volley rules. If this combination of spells is effective it means anything my Seaguard are in combat with are in trouble with re-rolling to hit with strength 8. Attacking in 5 ranks thanks to horde, second rank, and because they're elves the minimum number of a ttacks a unit in the front will take is 15 while the maximum is 50. The fact of the matter is that those two spells together are ridiculously strong but with strength vs. toughness limits removed if only the Initiative spell goes off the unit is incredibly dangerous and with the stepping up rule the leadership strength hit will tear through anything regardless given the number of attacks and ASF.

Also the combination of the first Lore of Death spell that allows you to degrade a stat in a unit by 3 and Pit of Shades would work nicely.

_________________This war will tear apart the sky,Letting through the light and we will survive!And we'll sing!Marching onward, we're singing for our freedom!

What is it with people wanting to use horde High Elves? When did we turn into Skaven? I'm not sure I get it.

A 50 man strong LSG unit (including shields, fc, fancy banner) is 700pts. If you count on magic buffs to increase the performance (which is nescesary) you have one mage just for this unit (or 2 that split their attention). This is another 150pts (give or take). This makes the investment in this M5, T3, 5+ save 850pts. A deathstar number if I ever saw one. Add into this that with 2 mages needed (buffs from 2 different lores), you have a chance of not getting the spells you want and for me the math doesn't add up at all. It just depends on your opponent being silly too much.

Magic is a big uncertainty this edition. Appart from not getting the right spells there is a big chance of having only one or two PD more than your opponent having DD(even if he doesn't take a mage). Or you just get 2 or 3 PD total and the whole thing goes out the window. And you can bet your opponent is going to dispell the T8 etc spells on you LSG deathstar. Anyone who doesn't just doesn't understand the game. You can't count of IF because you will just blow up your mage.

I don't know if any of the buffs are RIP, but if they are, then even if you get them trough, your opponent will save some dice to dispell them in his turn, right before he charges.

Then there is the problem that with 850pts tied up in 1 unit, you're not going to have many other units in the field. So your M5 unit will be avoided and may not even see combat. If it does then you can bet no sane person will charge it right in the front. And while the minimum attacks to the front is 15, to your flank it's 5 and to your rear it's 3. Just rear charge it with Tyrion and watch him slowly kill your T3 elves 6 elves at a time (not to forget the breath atack). Or park a stardragon in the flank and suddenly you've lost half your unit to dragon + prince + breath atacks. And only 5 (or 4 if you lose a rank) guys get to strike back. And both these options are loads cheaper than your LSG deathstar (Tyrion is 400, SD is about 620).

And I haven't even mentioned warmachines. You can bet that any general is going to shoot all his no measuring range, no partials (is that already confirmed?) warmachines and template weapons at your 700pt LSG long before they get a chance to shoot back (they're only 24'' range). And when you shoot back at those nasty, mean warmachines, you can only take out 1 per turn (and for instance, O&G can have 6 easy). Even if you're LSG unit will ever get into combat it will be horde no longer. And if you lose the unit, you will likely loose the game.

And finally (sorry for the rant), you can easily be out-horded by the realy horde armies. For 700 pts you can have 350 skaven slaves (are they still 2pts?) or 140 clanrats. Even if on the first turn you kill with all 50 attacks, you're still getting 30 attacks back, and suddenly you're loosing a few LSG. And those skaven are stubborn on LD 9 (assuming a general nearby), so not going anywhere anytime soon.They can easilly keep your LSG unit tied up for the rest of the game. And as to flank charging to help your LSG unit, remember he is the real horde and so will have more units and therefore is more likely to actually get that charge in.

Like I said, I just don't see it happening. Our models are too expensive, die too easily from missile/template attacks and can be flanked or outnumbered.

Rod

edit: spelling

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Eirik wrote:

Please try to remember that, no matter how 'official' the source seems, rumours are basically just a dictionary combined with a random number generator

I Like the idea of big infantry units supported by smaller units. It's still an elite army not likely to be more than one horde unit and that unit performs the task of both other HE core units so why not fill the 25% quota with them? All hordes are going to suffer with the templates anyway. Also I would love to see someone take a star Dragon in a 2250 point list (as they can't even be taken in 2000 point list) with 43 points of items and if you're playing with more points a big core unit seems completely viable. Magic buffs aren't necessary really they have ASF and re-roll to hit most opponents with 50 attacks. Granted some may die to template fire but a large template will cover the entirety of a smaller unit. I'd rather lose 350 points for having half a unit left than lose a whole unit for 350 points.

Magic isn't an uncertainty in this edition. The average roll of three dice renders a result of ten + wizard level (11, 12, 13, 14). The average roll indicates that the chance to roll double 6 on three dice is minimal (as the average roll is less than the sum of double 6's) but renders spells with casting values 14 (Pit of Shades) relatively easy to cast with an Archmage and, notably, Regrowth with a casting value of 12 means that a level 2 support Mage can heal up damaged units.

Yes people will out-horde the LSG horde and avoid it but at the same time LSG are a multi-purpose unit and so if the enemy chooses not to engage there will be 35 volley shots coming at him. It's personal preference. People will play lists that suit them. Besides it's the plan it's not to say I've actually played with it. Maybe it is shit. I don't play Warhammer to win with the best units available I play with the units I enjoy the most and work for me.

_________________This war will tear apart the sky,Letting through the light and we will survive!And we'll sing!Marching onward, we're singing for our freedom!

The way our synergies work, the Core supports the Elite, and it's not uncommon to have DP buses or PG anvils (some might have favoured WL ones, but that only seemed useful where bears do their business).

First off, using a lv 4 Archmage in 1250 with Anullian is brutal. Half the time I had more DD then he had PD. He only ever got two spells off, while I was reliably getting 2/turn.

Secondly, Shadow Lore is awesome. Melkoth's Miasma buffed to full is an amazing spell, and Withering for that Toughness reduction is what allowed me to take out the Ancient Stegadon and his Cold One Knights. Even the Pendulum, arguably the weakest spell in the Lore, was quite useful. I used it more than Pit of Shades mainly because of the scatter. First turn I blew a IF on a Pit of Shades that scattered off the Stegadon, and caused a S 10 hit on my wizard and half my Phoenix Guard. No casualties for him, 1 wound on my wizard, 2 dead PG. Not a great first go. The Pendulum however picked out his Skink Priest on the second cast, as well as two Cold One Cav.

Then he fried my 4 remaining DPs with Urannion's Thunderbolt. It's actually a fairly powerful spell, those S6 hits for a 10+ casting value is a good bargain. After the Priest was dead, I started throwing Withering around with impunity. I had a few phases with the max 12 dice thanks to Banner of Sorcery. The 1 Toughness Saurus/Cavalry made Archers and Seaguard bowshot much, much more lethal. Wounding on a 2+ stead of 5+? Yeah.

All in all, shadow is a very respectable lore. Looking forward to trying Life later.

Shadows is a great all around lore with nice syngenesis both between spells within the lore and with our own units. It is my fave of all the new ones and my current 8th ed list is built around and AM with that lore.

Lore of MetalPlague of Rust and Transmutation to Lead for -2 to enemy Armor saves. Shoot target with Sisters of Avelon for a further -2 to Armor Saves if forces of destruction eg: WoC. Add Enchanted Blades from Metal for a Total = -5 to armor saves nice!!!!!!